Anyway, one of the most interesting things about that (very) brief attempt to revive super-heroes is the design of some of the monsters. In between fighting an inexhaustible number of communist agents, Cap & the Torch & Namor fought some really cool-for-the-era monsters. A couple of days ago I showed you the Torch & Toro taking on the terror of the Un-Human.
Today we're going to see the Sub-Mariner taking on one of the most original monsters ever:
Uh, wait a minute...this guy looks kind of familiar:
Let's look again...comic book:
Movie:
Well, surely this was just a coincidence, right? There's only so many underwater monster designs, and...
The Creature From The Black Lagoon premiered March 5, 1954.
This story appeared in Sub-Mariner Comics #35, cover dated August 1954. Which means it probably hit the stands in June of 1954, which means writer/artist Bill Everett probably drew this sucker in April or May of 1954.Oh.
OK, so Everett "homaged" a recent movie monster to fight Namor. But really, this guy was substantially different than the Creature:
His name was Elmer...
He was afraid of water...And in later panels of the story, it's pretty clear that Elmer was hitting the all-you-can-eat fish taco bar a little too much:
Oh, yeah, the point of the whole story: an evil scientist (who looked nothing at all like Dr. Sivana) was trying to create an amphibious race of men:
So, just to be clear--he couldn't get them to breath underwater, or even swim--but he could sure as hell make them LOOK amphibious!! That's Golden Age Science for you!Anyway, this story showed pretty clearly how to defeat
Yipe indeed!!This story was reprinted in Marvel Super-Heroes #16 (1968).
thanks! great article. i appreciate it. namor the sub-mariner is my favorite of all the marvel super-heroes and the creature is my favorite of all 1950's monsters.
ReplyDeleteSweet.
ReplyDeleteI used to own a set of all of the Young Men Comics and Men's Adventures that featured the superhero revival at Atlas. I never did pick up the Cap, Subby, or Torch solo books from that period.
I never knew until recently that the reason the Sub-Mariner run was extended (long after the other heroes were consigned to being canceled) was that Martin Goodman had optioned the Sub-Mariner as a TV show and he kept the title going until that deal finally fell through.